


Basketcase

by GrumpierThanYou



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lesbian Character of Color, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, References to Depression, Unrequited Love, black main character, person of color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26155465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpierThanYou/pseuds/GrumpierThanYou
Summary: All my life I've been a weirdo, and outsider, and a basketcase. But she finally gave my life meaning...This story is about the unrequited love that's making me whole again instead of destroying me whole.The story of the girl who makes me feel like I'm finally breathing air again.This story is still playing out, so who's to tell how it will end?Told in a very unique and quite possibly off-putting narration style





	Basketcase

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of self harm and mental illness in this chapter, please dont read if this will upset you or trigger you.

So I’m laying next to her, my hands itch to touch her, to stroke the soft skin and silky hair the colour of sun-kissed wheat. Her eyes and closed, and her breathing is deep and relaxed. My hands clench into fists to keep from touching her, but it is a fight within myself. I stare at her sleeping form and my breath is taken from my lungs. How the hell can one person be this beautiful? It’s so unfair I could cry. I am, of course, acutely aware of the fact that my affections are not and will never be returned. But that does not keep my mind from wandering to thoughts, soft and gentle thoughts that quiet the usual turmoil inside me.  
//”Hi honey, I’m home from work.” She looks exhausted and I limp over to her to place a kiss on her cheek.  
“How was it?” I ask, brushing her long golden hair from her face and staring lovingly into those pools of deep grey-blue, “Did anything interesting happen?”  
She smiles at me and kisses me on the lips, “No, not a thing. But work was good.” She holds my hands in hers and all is right with the world. “I love you.” //  
I am snapped back to reality as she shifts in her sleep and makes a soft sound, her body touches mine and I feel a jolt of electricity course through my veins, my heart races and I feel a flutter in my stomach. Is this what love feels like? I am inclined to say yes, I have never felt like this before. From the moment I saw her my life was never the same, being with her brings colour into my drab, grey world. Gives me a type of warmth I’ve never felt before. If I focus on her, I feel whole…  
When she wakes up I have to pretend I didn’t spend the whole night watching her, I don’t want her to think I’m a creep or anything. I curl into myself next to her and say, “Good morning.”  
She replies, “Good morning.” She’s so beautiful when she speaks, it takes my breath away and I could cry I’m so happy to just hear her voice.  
So then I ask her, “How did you sleep?”  
And she looks at me, I wonder what she’s thinking, “Good.” She says after a beat. I want to kiss her lips.  
“Should I go head and turn off the alarm?” I ask, grabbing my phone and logging in. God my password is embarrassing, what am I five? I check my Facebook messages while I wait for her to answer.  
If I look at her too long my brain turns into soup, and my palms get sweaty, so I focus on the tiny screen and turn off the alarm. I look up and she’s staring at the ceiling, I watch her for a moment, tracing the lines of her face, memorizing every tiny detail I can in the dim light of the early morning.  
“Sooo,” I say, unsure how to talk suddenly. She smiles at me, and I feel like my heart is being strangled.  
“So.” She responds.  
“What do you want for breakfast?” We’re at my house after all, we’re usually at her house, so this is awkward.  
“I don’t have time for breakfast.” She answers, “I have to drive back to my house, and then drive to work.”  
“Oh.” I reply, I’m sure the disappointment is evident on my face and in my voice. I tentatively reach out and touch her hair, brushing it from her face. She doesn’t stop me, just leans into my touch. We’re close, incredibly close. We’ve fooled around a few times, nothing major, nothing that would change our relationship, much to my dismay. I want to be more than just best friends. I want to be girlfriends, I want to wake up to her every day. Well I wouldn’t wake up to her, since I don’t really sleep. I’d just spend every night staring at her, but that’s the way I wanna spend my nights. Forever. She could teach me to cook and force me to try more food. I could learn to cook her favorite meals and have them waiting for her when she got home. Or we could cook together every night, side by side. Smiling and giggling. I chase away the thoughts before I can break my own heart.  
“Can we just lay here for a minute then?” I ask her, it isn’t weird when there’s a long pause between us. She gets that it takes me a long time to reply, there’s so many gears that shift and pause and break in my head. And I don’t mind when she takes a while to answer either, because I love almost everything about her.  
“Yea sure.” She smiles at me. There’s an error message in my brain, and I think I’m going to blue screen. How does she always know what to say or do that will make me fall in love all the more.  
We chat about random things for a while, but my thoughts keep drifting back to the previous night. Oh yea, I forget to mention, our other friend was over at my apartment too. Her name is Amber and she’s like, really frigging awesome and a total badass. She’s taking like a million college classes, taking care of her grandmother and is basically the glue that holds her family together. I wanna be her when I grow up to be honest. She’s actually a week younger than me, but she’s my role model. Oh, I also never mentioned my best friend’s name. God, I’m dumb, her name is Taylor. I’m the worst narrator in the world just so you know  
Anyways, what I’m thinking about is when we played truth or dare and the dare where Taylor had to lick something edible off my neck. It was like, so hot and like, talk about arousal.  
Taylor is basically everything I’ve ever been attracted to in a person. Fun, motherly, sassy, playful, erotic (She has an OnlyFans). I just can’t see a world in which I wouldn’t have fallen madly in love with her.  
After a while she gets up, and I know it’s almost time for her to go. And I’m reeling, struggling to find an excuse for her to stay longer. If I feign an injury will she stay? If I say I’m sick will she baby me and kiss my forehead, tuck me in, making me soup. Scratch that, I fucking hate soup.  
She hugs me before she leaves and gives me a kiss on the forehead. I’m too short to kiss her back. I’m like shorter than most people. Amber and I are almost the same height though, which is nice. It means we actually walk near the same pace. Ok, that’s a lie, she walks faster than me, every walks faster than me. I have a limp, I don’t know why, but my hip always aches and I refuse to go to the doctor about it. Actually if I’m honest most of my body hurts constantly unless I’m asleep. Also my mind is constantly screaming at me, I have very dark thoughts sometimes. Thoughts that I should kill myself and stuff, thoughts that everyone hates me. When I was younger these thoughts would get to be so much that I would hurt myself in ways that caused people to look at me like I was crazy. And like, yeah, I probably am crazy, but… Ok I have nothing to add. I am crazy, most days I cry for hours and have to fight off the urge to just you know, end it all. Oof, that sounds depressing, but don’t worry about me, things will turn out the way they’re meant to. So if I die, then I die I suppose.  
She’s gone now and I don’t know what to do with myself. Taylor is my sun and I am the sunflower that follows her light. Is that super gay to say? Probably. But I am like, super gay. Like really gay. I like guys, but I LOVE girls. There’s just something about girls that draws me in. I’m a fly drawn to their sweet nectar.  
I stare up at the ceiling. I think back to the first time we kissed. It was at her house. We were cuddled up together, we we’re touching each other and stuff and then I just kissed her, and it was like kissing for the first time. It was like I had been drowning my entire life and I was suddenly given air for the first time.  
Ok, if you’re getting sick of hearing me blabber on and on about my best friend, fret not because the whole story wont be about my big unrequited crush. (But she will definitely be a huge main feature)  
So I’ve been watching Euphoria and I mean, the show is fantastic. Who the hell told Hunter Schafer she could be that fucking fantastic, how is this her first time acting? I’m jealous, I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. I was good too. But my grandmother wouldn’t allow me to pursue my dreams, I would tell her about all these acting opportunities and she would just shoot me down. Acting was the one thing I was the most passionate about. I would read script after script and act out the characters, and I could have been someone. But then everything fell apart. And I crumbled into a shadow of my former self. I gave up on everything, I stopped living. I simply survived, but I was still a good actor, so at school no one ever suspected anything was wrong. No one would have thought that I was slicing my arms and legs to ribbons, that I was starving myself, that I was slamming my head against the walls at home. That my grandma was verbally abusing me daily… that I was being put down at every turn and growing increasingly desperate to find a reason to live for.  
Ok wow, that got dark, but you are the one who picked up a story literally titled Basketcase. What did you expect? Sunshine and roses? I wish that’s what my life had been. Ok, buckle up, this story gets dark, but there’s levity in the darkness.


End file.
